Little John's Solution
by Auriela
Summary: Robin. Marian. A cave. And one frustrated Little John determined to make the bickering stop…RM Oneshot.


**Summary**: Robin. Marian. A cave. And one frustrated Little John determined to make the bickering stop…RM Oneshot.

**Disclaimer**: Not mine. Wish Jonas Armstrong was, though…

**A/N**: This idea was hatched before the season final, so Marian is engaged to Gisborne, Robin's furious about it, but they have yet to resolve their differences. Basically it's a very corny version of how I wanted the last season to end. Despite being slightly AU, it is still the same fluffy Robin/Marian goodness I always seem to be writing these days. Just so you know, Little John is quite different in this story – he really is the gang's second hand man, and actually talks (shock horror!). Hope you enjoy!

_Little John's Solution_

also known as

_One Cave, One Bickering Couple, and One Fed-Up Little John_

'Much, this bacon isn't cooked through.'

Much looked up at his master, confusion written plainly across his face. 'Sorry, m'lord?'

'The bacon, Much? It isn't cooked through.' Robin stood tall, one hand on his hip, the other thrusting a plate of food back towards the small, pale man, glaring much too fiercely for the early hours of the morning. Little John knew for a fact that the bacon was cooked through, as he had just devoured three pieces, but Robin had been in a bad mood ever since he had returned to the campsite last night for dinner, treading unusually heavily on the leafy ground and snapping at anyone that came too near. Little John had a sneaking suspicion he had been to see Marian, but Robin hadn't said and his men know better than to disturb Robin when he stared that furious way into the fire like he had the previous night.

Little John watched a bewildered Much as he took back the plate of food, a hurt frown beginning to cloud his features. Robin stormed off to the other side of the camp, where Djaq and Will were laughing loudly at a bawdy joke told by Allan. Robin told them off, first for being so loud and then for the vulgar subject matter, although John had been there two nights before when Robin had laughed even louder than Will at the very same joke.

John knew that something was up and he knew that none of his party would be able to weasel it out of Robin. There was only one person adept at that particular art, and John had already had enough of this morose Robin. The last time his leader was in this sort of mood he had not snapped out of it for a week, and John was not prepared to wait that long this time.

He had to find Marian.

-

Robin suspected that Little John had gone to watch the Forest Road when he left the camp a little over an hour previously, but found he was not at all surprised when he returned with the lady that had been occupying Robin's thoughts since he left her house abruptly the night before. Marian, in a dark blue dress that brought out her eyes, was flushed from travelling and was looking a little too cross for Robin's comfort. Her eyes sought him out and when they met his he knew that she had not forgiven him.

He moved to stand, sighing heavily as Allan's boisterous laugh dropped away. All eyes at the campsite turned to the couple as Robin folded his arms and gazed steadily at Marian. Much's fire, cheerfully crackling along, and the sweet birdsong above their heads, the only noises in the area, were completely oblivious to the building tension.

Marian did not want to be the first person to speak – after the stunt that Robin pulled the night before, it would be the gentlemanly thing for him to begin the conversation – but she knew from Robin's even gaze that he had no intention of speaking any time soon. And because she wanted to get back to her father, and, in part, because John had asked her so nicely, she decided she may as well start.

'Little John asked me to come,' she began, her voice ringing out loudly across the camp. 'Apparently, Robin, you have been in a bad mood.'

She knew that would get a rise out of him and prompt him to conversation, and her expectations did not fail. His mouth dropped open in anger and his eyes flashed fiercely.

'I would not be in such a bad mood if you had not been so disagreeable last night, Marian,' he angrily reminded her.

She smiled grimly. 'Oh, grow up, Robin. You shouldn't let others' moods influence your own.' He just glared at her. 'And you know very well that if you had not been so accusing of my choices in life then I would not have reacted in the same way.'

'It is not my fault that you are still feeling upset and guilty about your engagement with Gisborne,' Robin answered, his voice shaking with fury.

'Do not bring that up again! I have heard your arguments many times, but I have not changed my mind regarding my fiancé.' She saw him visibly wince at the word and felt a stab of perverse pleasure. 'I came here only because Little John asked me to, Robin, not to be insulted like I was last night.'

'You were only insulted so because my words were the truth. You do not want to marry him – you never have – but you cannot bear letting me know that, can you? You speak about how it is for your father's safety as much as your own, but there are so many different paths you could take…Gisborne is not the only way to save yourself and your father, Marian!'

'And you would know how, exactly, Robin?' Marian shouted back, furious now and ready to stalk away. She did not care anymore about John's unease and rare beseeching face; she only knew that she could not stand to be around this man any longer. 'You cannot control my life, just as I cannot control yours.'

Robin frowned at her words. 'And what's that supposed to mean?'

Marian brought a hand up to shield her eyes, wanting so desperately to escape. 'Robin, I have to leave, but I ask you to think about your men, and how your sulking affects them. Please reconsider your foul mood, for their sakes.'

Little John had a different idea, however. Earlier this morning he believed that he was sick of Robin's mood; now he understood he was sick of the relentless quarrelling. As Marian turned to leave, John blocked her way. 'You will not leave,' he growled. She looked shocked and opened her mouth to contradict him but Little John was quicker. 'You'll go quickly, now,' he said, shepherding her along to stand next to Robin. Her glare was now directed at the two of them, Robin and John, as the latter forced Robin and Marian to walk towards the cave a few metres from their clearing.

The other four in the gang followed the big man and his victims curiously, not at all sure what John intended to do with the couple. Djaq and Will looked surprised, and Allan seemed to be struggling to hold the laughter in, while Much looked torn between amusement and pummelling John in the stomach for ordering his master around like this.

The cave was small – with John following closely behind Marian and Robin it was rather a tight squeeze – but beautiful, in its own wild way. The round hole at the top of the cave was letting strands of bright yellow sunlight shadow the rock's surface, gilded with dark moss and tree roots.

John wanted to laugh at the glares he was receiving; both Marian and Robin's faces were identical in their disbelief. But he kept his expression carefully blank and folded his arms seriously, gazing at the two of them as they looked around the cave incredulously.

'What are you doing, John?' Robin asked, almost uncertainly.

'Resolving your differences,' John said simply, and turned back towards the cave's opening. The others stared, bewildered, at the now furious Robin and Marian, and scampered quickly out behind John.

'Oh, no you don't, John!' Robin yelled, making his way to the front of the cave. 'You have no right telling Marian and I what we should or shouldn't do…'

John looked over his shoulder and gave Robin a tight-lipped smile. 'Oh, no, Robin. I'm not telling you. I'm ordering you.'

Marian, behind Robin's shoulder, scoffed a little, but Robin was not done yet. He turned to Much – loyal, trustworthy Much. It only took one earnest look before the poor manservant was fidgeting nervously.

'I'm not involved in this!' he said, his voice high-pitched. 'This has nothing to do with me! And don't you dare look at me like that, Robin! I'm sure that this is for your own good.'

'And ours, mate,' Allan added.

'And what do you mean by that?' Robin turned angrily to the blue-eyed man now eyeing his leader nervously.

'Well, I'm not bein' funny or anyfin', but don't yeh reckon that yeh and Lady Marian, yeh know, bicker more tha' enough? And when things turn out badly between the two o' yeh -'

'Which they usually do,' Djaq interjected unhelpfully.

'- we're the ones that have to deal with yer moods.' Allan now looked terrified at the intensity of Robin's livid glare, only amplified by Marian's unsupportive giggle.

Robin turned to Will, the only silent one in the group. 'Do you have anything to say for yourself, then?'

Will stared Robin straight in the eye. 'They're right, Robin.'

Robin let out an irritated chuckle. 'And so I suppose you're going to make the two of us stay in here until we 'resolve our differences'?'

'Knew you'd catch on,' John said. Barking out short orders, he arranged for Will and Djaq to guard the entrance – making sure the two gang members were aware of the possibility of escape through the cave's 'ceiling' – while Much tended to the campsite and he and Allan watched the Forest Road for a chance raid.

Little John gazed at the two people standing crossly at the entrance of the cave. 'You can come out when you've stopped bickering,' he said brusquely, then turned his heel.

-

Marian rolled her eyes. 'So we are stuck here.'

Robin sat down gracelessly on the leafy ground, putting his head in his hands. 'We are stuck here. You saw John. It is useless arguing with him, especially when he has a plan he wants to have carried out.'

'Sounds like someone familiar,' Marian muttered. She trembled with anger, the sheer unfairness of it all. 'I will not be trapped like this! I should be free to leave! I must return to my father – I said I would be back within the hour – he will worry if I am gone for much longer.'

Robin shrugged, looking up at her. 'Perhaps we _should_ start to resolve things – the quicker we do the quicker you can return to your father.'

Marian crossed her arms defiantly. 'Talking doesn't usually resolve things with us, Robin. It never has.' She knew that they were both thinking of the numerous times they had both stormed away from the other in their younger years, furious at something said.

'We have not been trapped together and forced to talk before,' Robin noted. 'Perhaps this time we can leave on companionable terms.'

Marian gave a very unladylike snort and leaned against the wall, looking down on him. 'Fine then, Robin, what would you like to talk about? How do you think we could leave on companionable terms? For I cannot remember any conversation we have had in the past that has not reached the calamitous subject of my relationship with Guy – which usually resolves itself with one of us getting in such a rage we have to leave.'

'Should we begin on that topic, then?' Robin asked. 'Get it out of the way and all that.'

Marian frowned. 'You cannot make fun of this, Robin. Our conversations have become too serious on this matter to poke fun at it. I only want you to accept that I have chosen my fate and for you to stop bothering me about it any longer!'

'But you have chosen a fate you should not have to live!' Robin said passionately. 'You are not meant for Gisborne, Marian. He is a traitor – an evil, malicious man. But yet you do not break off the engagement – you choose to remain with him, regardless of all his vices.'

'Robin, you cannot believe that there is a single man alive that does not have a vice of some kind – even you, the great Robin Hood, has a few. Glory, for one thing.'

'You are still bitter about me leaving,' he said quietly, after a pause.

'And you are still bitter about me being taken, and by your greatest rival too,' she replied. He looked up at her, and she raised an eyebrow. 'Am I wrong?' When he did not answer, she continued, 'Understand me, Robin, I may have loved you once, but I was merely a child. That affection is not, and cannot, be continued. For both our sakes.'

'For both our sakes?' Robin repeated. 'Marian -'

She turned away. 'You are right, however, because I am still bitter about you leaving. Life would have been very different if you had remained behind.' She looked at the floor. 'You would not be an outlaw, for one, living in this forest, stealing for a living.'

'I would be married to you,' he said quietly.

Marian looked back at him. His eyes too were on the ground, and his face was sad. 'Things would be different,' she repeated. And then, because he was quiet, she asked, not quite hiding the tremble in her voice that revealed her real desperation to understand, 'Why did you leave, Robin? Why leave everything you had ever known behind to travel towards an almost certain death?'

'We are all travelling towards certain death, Marian; I was just prepared to travel towards it for King and country.' He was quiet. 'It was for glory, like you suspect. But not the glory for which you believe me to have gone away for.' He watched his fingers as he moved them together and apart again. 'You have to know, Marian, how I loved you. More than anything.' She snorted again, but Robin pressed on. 'Before I left for my uncle's property you were a close friend, a little girl I loved to run around with, but when I returned…'

Marian could remember that day so clearly – her father opening the door to reveal a young man who she barely recognised but for the same twinkling eyes that her childhood friend Rob once had. His eyes had lingered for a second too long over her body, changed from the two summers he had been away learning about property management on his uncle's farm, and she had smiled at him cheekily, knowing exactly what he had been thinking. He had thrown her a grin full of such charm and cheek she had known immediately that she would fall for him, and fall for him hard.

She could also remember when he returned from the Holy Land, to be faced by a cross Edward and an expertly drawn bow. Again he had been a changed man, but this time the twinkling eyes she had once loved had also altered – they were burning with a different fire now, and it was one that worried her. She always tried to ignore the sheer anxiety she felt creeping up her throat, threatening to choke her, whenever she thought too hard about what he must have been through in the Holy Land to cause the famous Robin of Locksley to lose that mischievous twinkle.

'I remember,' she said softly.

'If you want to know the truth, I thought it would not be possible for a beautiful woman like that to remain as wild and headstrong as she was as a child – something that I admired and resented at the time – but I was proved wrong. Very wrong.' He shot a teasing grin her way. 'It was only a mere couple of days before I realised I was in love with you, Marian.' His face became serious once more and his gaze returned to his muddy boots and the dirty string lacing them up. 'But I guess that may have frightened me. And I also felt I had to prove myself. Prove that I wasn't the same gangly bloke that teased you and taught you how to shoot an arrow as a girl. I wanted to be a man, a man that you could be proud of.'

Deep down she knew she had understood this, but to hear him admit it moved her more than she would ever want to say. 'And you would leave me behind, to go to your death, to prove that? What use is that? I was there; willing to be married, _ready_ to be married, and you would leave to prove that you were someone I would be proud to marry? Robin, I already _was_ proud to marry you! Didn't you understand that?'

Robin shook his head. 'I was young and foolish. I thought…'

There was silence in the cave until Robin finally raised his head to watch her. 'I regret leaving, Marian. More than anything.'

She looked away, unable to continue thinking logically under his powerful gaze. 'You would have regretted not going more, I daresay.'

'No.' The force of his words made her return her eyes to him. His eyes relayed a quiet intensity and Marian knew she must remain silent; he needed to tell her this. 'I regret going away with so much of my being…You have no idea what the Holy Land is like, Marian. The blood, the screams, the pain of watching innocent people die – but there was no time for remorse, no time for guilt about what we were doing, the harm we were causing to others' families. There was just merciless slaughtering. And there is no _glory_ in that at all.' He stared at a point behind her, taken back into a different time, another place. 'It was not holy; it was just a tragedy. It didn't take me very long to realise that. And once I did, I realised the enormity of what I had done – by going, I would most certainly die, for there was no simple escape from the unforgiving brutality of war, and I would never see you again. The one woman I truly loved was gone from my life forever, because I had thought it was necessary to prove myself. The entire time I was there I was living only half a life, always thinking about what our life together might have been like. What you were doing here, at home in England. Whether you had forgiven me. You might not believe that, but you can ask Much. Honestly, I do not doubt that the only things he heard from me were useless musings on your life.' He shook his head. 'I thought that the war was for a grand cause, while the real battle was being waged here, without me. I was so glad when I was injured, because it meant I could return home, return to where the real struggle was, return to you.' He lowered his gaze again. 'I knew that it was foolish of me to hope that you had not married, and that your feelings had remained unchanged, for I was gone for many years, and I had left you ready for marriage and all that it demanded…I _am_ bitter about you being engaged to Gisborne. It is why I am so steadfastly against it.' He looked up at her again and his fierce passion, Marian noticed, was back in his eyes. 'Because it should be me, Marian, not Gisborne. I should be your fiancé; I should be the one waiting to marry you. We belong together – surely you know that.'

Marian shook her head, willing the tears threatening to spill over to remain just where they were. She had waited for so long for Robin to reveal something like that to her; the time had now come and passed and she could not bring herself to speak lest her voice crack.

'You should be so proud for what you have done for this country, Marian. I know that I tease you about it and tell you it's too dangerous, but only because I do not want to see you get hurt. And I suppose it's what I love about you – that despite my misgivings you steam ahead anyway. I am proud to know you, Marian. And I need you to know and understand that, so that the next time I yell at you for marrying Gisborne or for sneaking out again as the Nightwatchman, you'll understand that it's because I care for you, and not for some other childish reason.'

'Thank you,' she said softly, wishing there was more she could say at this moment.

He bowed his head. 'I know that telling you all that won't change your mind about me, because leaving you was inexcusable, and I know that Gisborne's offer is much more appealing, what with him being able to give you horses and a roof above your head, while I…' His voice trailed away.

Marian smiled in spite of herself. 'You'd offer me love, which I think is worth more than anything Gisborne could ever give me.'

He watched her carefully, unable to disguise the hope flickering in his eyes. 'And what's that supposed to mean?' he asked her for the second time that day.

She shrugged. 'I'm still deciding. For instance, how do I know that if I fall into your arms again you will not leave me once more? How do I know that everything concerning my father and my position in court and our home will not fall into disarray if I do not marry Gisborne? How…?'

Robin stood abruptly, striding over to where she was still standing. 'You need to stop asking so many questions,' he murmured, smiling at her surprised face. 'Surely you know that in the famous romance tales true love conquers all?'

She watched his face, so serious, before breaking into peals of laughter. 'Oh, Robin! Don't be so silly.'

He looked a tiny bit put out. 'Why? I certainly like that idea.'

She grinned. 'Of course you would. It's just that…reality and fantasy are two very different things. And in my position, with everything my family holds dear on such a tenuous thread regarding the Sheriff, fantasy is something that both of us cannot entertain.'

He began to look more cross. 'This isn't a fantasy, Marian. Surely you know that this is real, that what we have is real, and that there should be nothing standing in the way of the two of us?'

'Alas, there always seems to be,' she said. 'First your glory, now my fiancé…'

'Stop jesting about this!' Robin cried, moving slightly closer to her, and she stifled a grin, as he had just come full circle to her own initial argument. Perhaps it was this change in him, his sincerity about the entire matter, which made her truly understand they were discussing something much larger than what John originally trapped them in the cave for.

'Robin, we cannot.'

'Marian, we can.'

'Robin…'

'I love you, Marian. And despite your protests against the contrary, I know that you love me too. And that's not me being overconfident or arrogant, it's just a fact. And because of that you simply cannot marry Gisborne. I will do everything in my power to make sure you and your father are safe – you will stay with us, if it is necessary – but know that there are other paths to your security than marrying _him_.' He bites his lip. 'Life is full of uncertainties, Marian, but there is one thing that I am more certain about than anything else, than anything else I have ever known. And that is that I love you. And I'm not going to leave you, willingly or unwillingly, ever again, if I can help it.'

She gazed up at him, his body much closer than she remembered, scared and excited by the passion evident in his eyes. 'Promise?' she whispers.

He smiled, brushing a stray piece of hair away from her eyelashes. 'I promise.'

His breath was warm on her cheek, and sent small tingles down the base of her spine. He leaned down, pausing mere inches from her face, his eyes locked on hers; he seemed to be waiting for permission. She didn't hesitate; closing her eyes she brought her lips to his warm, smiling mouth. He kissed her so tenderly she thought she might truly begin to cry. The pressure of his mouth on hers was so delicious she lost the ability to think, and she shivered with pleasure as their tongues met. She felt a warm tingling sensation beginning at the pit of her stomach, intensifying as he pulled her closer.

Had it really been five years since they had been this close, holding each other as if the other might disappear with the slightest breath of wind? How had she managed to live without this?

Robin pulled away from her, smiling happily. 'I love you, Marian,' he said.

In that moment she knew; she knew that regardless of everything plotted against them being together, there was no other way she would have it. As long as she had this man in front of her, holding her safe and warm in his arms, watching her with those beautiful blue eyes, she could survive anything.

'I love you too, Robin Hood.'

-

Much was squirming uneasily when Little John and Allan returned from Forest Road, unable to concentrate on the freshly caught rabbit roasting on the fire in front of him. When he saw the large man his face lit up.

'John! Don't you think it's high time we got Robin out of there? I mean, it's been a long time now, I really think they've learnt their lesson…'

Allan laughed. 'Or else Marian's torn 'im apart in anger!'

John rolled his eyes. 'I'll get 'em back.' He strode over to the cave, where Djaq and Will were sitting silently. Will was carving a small block of wood skilfully as Djaq watched him attentively with her big dark eyes. They both tore their eyes away from what they were doing as John came to view.

'Are they allowed out?' Djaq asked, getting only a gruff nod in reply from John.

The two simply watched as Little John entered the cave, calling out shortly, 'You can come out now!'. Then, suddenly, they heard a short rumble of laughter coming from the giant himself. 'Or, if you wanted, I could leave you in here for another couple of hours.'


End file.
